In a recent interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Randy Morton and Marc Baidan—former heads of Bellagio and the Las Vegas Raiders who were pegged by Oak View Group and CEO Tim Leiweke to spearhead the massive $3 billion sports and entertainment development on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road—shared some new details about the project, which will include a casino-resort and a new NBA-ready arena.
According to the two executives, about $1 billion of the $3 billion privately-funded budget will go towards the arena, which is expected to have a 20,000-seat capacity.
The arena is multi-purpose, but the general consensus is that it will house an NBA franchise if and when the league expands to Las Vegas and Seattle, which has been heavily rumored for years.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at a recent press conference that the league will invariably expand, but it is not a priority at this time. Morton and Baidan indicated that development will proceed regardless of whether a team is planned for the city or not. In some respects, having the arena already built actually creates a stronger bid for a potential franchise.
There were few new details about the proposed casino-resort, although Morton did indicate that the company is “working on 2,000 rooms.”
Speculation has also swirled about the possibility of a Major League Soccer stadium being built alongside the complex, on a property owned by investor Wes Eden, but Baidan didn’t offer any details except that Eden’s group had secured “the rights to the expansion franchise,” and that “they’ve looked at that location for a potential stadium.”
The other topic of interest was the possibility of the complex being linked to the high-speed Vegas-to-SoCal Brightline train system that is expected to be built in coming years. When asked about this possibility, Morton affirmed that “transportation is very important,” and that he couldn’t say for sure at this time if it will actually happen. If it does, however, he is confident that it would be “very exciting and very welcomed certainly for all of our customers that would come from Southern California.”
Even though the property is on the south side of the Strip and away from most other high-traffic areas in the city, Morton believes that the “ease of getting in and out of this property will certainly benefit the casino business seven days a week.”
